Bad Love

'But maybe that's what it was? Someone else was involved in my Becky's…'

A loud bang percussed in my ear. A few seconds later: 'Dropped the phone, you still there?'

'Yes.'

'So what're you saying? This Gritz could have been involved in hurting my baby?'

'I wish I could tell you, Mrs. Basille. Gritz and Hewitt were friends, so it's possible Gritz had some influence on Hewitt. But there's no evidence-'

'Bad love,' she said. 'No one was ever able to explain to me what it meant.'

'It's a psychological term coined by Katarina de Bosch's father- Dr. Andres de Bosch.'

'Debauch?'

'De Bosch. He was a psychologist who ran a remedial school up in Santa Barbara.'

No reaction.

I said, 'Lyle Gritz may have been a patient there. For all I know, Hewitt may have been also. Did Rebecca ever mention anything related to any of this?'

'No… God in heaven… I think I'm going to be sick.'

'I'm truly sorry, Mrs.-'

'What'd you say your name was?'

'Alex Delaware.'

'Give me your phone number.'

I did.

'Okay,' she said, 'I'm calling that Sturgis right now and checking you out.'

'He's in Santa Barbara. You can reach him at the police department there.' I fished around, retrieved Sarah Grayson's card, and read off the number.

She hung up without comment.

Ten minutes later, my service put her through.

'He wasn't in,' she said, 'but I spoke to a woman cop who said you're for real. So, okay, I'm sorry for what you're going through- once you been through it you get sorry a lot for other people. Okay, what can I do for you?'

'I was just wondering if Becky ever talked about her work. Said anything that might help find Gritz and clear this up.'

'Talked? Yeah, she talked. She loved her… hold on… my stomach… hold on, I thought I was okay, but now I feel like I have to throw up again- let me go do that, and then I'll call you back- no, forget that, I hate the phone. Phone rings now, my heart starts going like it's going to explode- you want to come down and see me it's okay. Let me see what you look like, I hate the phone.'

'How about I come to your house?'

'Sure- no, forget it. The place is depressing. I never was a homemaker, now I don't do a darn thing. Why don't you meet me over in Hancock Park? Not the neighborhood, the actual park- know where it is?'

'Over by the tar pits.'

'Yeah, meet me on the Sixth Street side, behind the museums. There's a shady area, some benches. What're you gonna wear?'

'Jeans and a white shirt.'

'Fine. I'll be wearing- no, this is wrinkled, gotta change it- I'll be wearing a… green blouse. Green with a white collar. Just look for an ugly old woman with a green blouse and a crappy disposition.'

• • •

The blouse was grass green. She was sitting under a thatch of mismatched trees, on a bench facing the rolling lawn that separated the County Art Museum from the dinosaur depository George Page had built with Mission Pack money. At the end of the lawn the tar pits were an oily black sump behind wrought iron pickets. Through the fence, plaster mastodons reared and glared at the traffic on Wilshire Boulevard. Tar leaked through the entire park, seeping up in random spots, and I just missed stepping in a bubbling pool as I made my way toward Rolanda Basille.

Her back was to Sixth Street, but I had a three-quarter view of her body. Around sixty-five. Her collar was a snowy Peter Pan job, her slacks olive wool, much too heavy for the weather. She had hair dyed as black as the tar, cut in a flapper bob with eyebrow-length bangs. Her face was crinkled and small. Arthritic hands curled in her lap. Red tennis shoes covered her feet, over white socks, folded over once. A big, green plastic purse hung from her shoulder. If she weighed a hundred pounds, it was after Thanksgiving dinner.

The ground was covered with dry leaves and I made noise as I approached. She kept gazing out at the lawn and didn't look back. Children were playing there, mobile dots on an emerald screen, but I wasn't sure she saw them.

The random trees had been trimmed to form a canopy, and the shadows they cast were absolute. Several other benches were scattered nearby, most of them empty. A black man slept on one, a paper bag next to his head. Two women of Rolanda Basille's approximate age sat on another, strumming guitars and singing.

I walked in front of her.

She barely looked up, then slapped the bench.

I sat down. Music drifted over from the two guitarists. Some sort of folk song, a foreign language.

'The Stepne sisters,' she said, sticking out her tongue. 'They're here all the time. They stink. Did you ever see a picture of my daughter?'

'Just in the paper.'

'That wasn't a flattering one.' She opened the big purse, searched for a while, and took out a medium-sized envelope. Withdrawing three color photographs, she handed them to me.

Professional portraits, passable quality. Rebecca Basille sitting in a white wicker chair, posed three different ways in front of a mountain-stream backdrop, wearing a powder-blue dress and pearls. Big smile. Terrific teeth. Very pretty; soft, curvy build, soft arms, a trifle heavy. The dress was low-cut and showed some cleavage. Her brown hair was shiny and long and iron-curled at the ends, her eyes full of humor and just a bit of apprehension, as if she'd been sitting for a long time and had doubts about the outcome.

'Very lovely,' I said.

'She was beautiful,' said Rolanda. 'Inside and out.'

She held out her hand and I returned the photos. After she'd replaced them in the purse, she said, 'I just wanted you to see the person she was, though even these don't do it. She didn't like having her picture taken- used to be chubby when she was little. Her face was always gorgeous.'

I nodded.

She said, 'There was a wounded bird within five miles, Becky'd find it and bring it home. Shoeboxes and cotton balls and eyedroppers. She tried to save anything- bugs-those little gray curly things?'

'Potato bugs?'

'Those. Moths, ladybugs, whatever, she'd save 'em. When she was real little she went through this stage of not wanting anyone to cut the lawn because she thought it hurt the grass.'

She tried to smile, but her lips got away from her and began trembling. She covered them with one hand.

'You see what I'm saying?' she said, finally.

'I do.'

'She never changed. In school, she went straight for the outcasts- anyone who was different, or hurting- the retarded kids, harelips, you name it. Sometimes I think she was attracted to hurt.'

Another forage in the purse. She found red-framed sunglasses and put them on. Given the ambient shade, they must have blacked out the world.

I said, 'I can see why she went into social work.'

'Exactly. I always figured she would do something like that, always told her nursing or social work would be perfect for her. But of course when you tell them, they do something else. So it took her a while to know what she wanted. She didn't want to go to college, did some waitressing, some file clerking, secretarial. My other kids were different. Real driven. Got a boy practicing orthopedic medicine in Reno, and my older girl works in a bank in St. Louis- assistant vice president.'